Topic:

Video Games and Reaction Time

Question:

Do video games affect reaction time?

Background Information:

According to Jonathan E. Thiele video games do not really affect the reaction time of people. They did a test on people to see if the urgency of video games would affect the reaction time of them. At the end of there experiment they found that the urgency in the video game did not really affect the reaction time of the people they tested. They also state that further analysis is unnecessary.
http://clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu/manuscripts/846.php

According to the website http://www.kidsandcomputers.co.uk/can-computer-games-help-improve-reaction-times.html many people like video games but mostly boys. And they also state that video games do in fact affect your reaction time. But only if the game time is controlled. If it is uncontrolled then it does not have a positive action on people. Video games can also be used as an educational aid. They also say that there are some other benefits from video games to. One benefit that it says is better vision.
http://www.kidsandcomputers.co.uk/can-computer-games-help-improve-reaction-times.html

According to the website http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/HumBio_p025.shtml Sometime in a persons late 20's is when a person reaches there fastest reaction time. Then from there their reaction time starts to slowly slowdown. Up till their 50's and 60's then they start to slow down even faster. The reaction to sound is shown to be a lot faster than the reaction to visual. Reaction times have also been shown to be dependent upon many factors, such as a person's age, genetics, gender, health, right- or left-handedness.
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/HumBio_p025.shtml

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that people who play video games regularaly will have a faster reaction time than people who do not play video games regularly.

Procedure

  1. First I will make a test for people to take to get info on how much video games they play.
  2. Next I will have them take the test.
  3. Then when they are done i will have them do a reaction game online to get there average reaction time.
  4. I will then record that and put them into a category of every day, every other day, once a week, twice a mount, and never.
  5. I will repeat steps 2-4 about 14 more times to get a total of 30 people.
  6. Then I will get the average for each group.
  7. Next I will compare the final averages.
  8. Finally I will see if my hypothesis was right and or if it was wrong.

Materials

  • Computer
  • paper
  • pencil
  • printer
  • people to test

Experiment

do the experiment.


Data


Addicted GP
every day
Average GP
every other day
Normal GP
once a week
Semi GP
twice a month
Not a GP
never

Key
GP = Game Player

Person 1


.232



Person 2



.426


Person 3
.198





Person 4

.223




Person 5


.281



Person 6
.326





Person 7

.271




Person 8

.214




Person 9
.193





Person 10

.212




Person 11
.242





Person 12
.230





Person 13
.218





Person 14

.274




Person 15




.529

Total Averages
.235
.239
.257
.426
.529


Conclusion
Do video games affect reaction time? My hypothesis is people who play video games regularaly will have a faster reaction time than people who do not play video games regularly. My hypothesis was correct because the people that play games more had a faster reaction time average than the rest. As you see the less they played games the slower there average was. So this shows my hypothesis was correct and playing some video games do infact make your reaction time faster so you can react to things around you faster.
I think I could have done some things a little differently. Like I could have tested more people like my whole class room which might have gave me bigger numbers which might have given me a little bit different results. I also have a question that if you could be an every day gameplayer what if the type of game you played could have slowed your reaction time?